@article {Boscain2013, title = {Lipschitz Classification of Almost-Riemannian Distances on Compact Oriented Surfaces}, journal = {Journal of Geometric Analysis}, volume = {23}, number = {1}, year = {2013}, month = {Jan}, pages = {438{\textendash}455}, abstract = {

Two-dimensional almost-Riemannian structures are generalized Riemannian structures on surfaces for which a local orthonormal frame is given by a Lie bracket generating pair of vector fields that can become collinear. We consider the Carnot{\textendash}Carath{\'e}odory distance canonically associated with an almost-Riemannian structure and study the problem of Lipschitz equivalence between two such distances on the same compact oriented surface. We analyze the generic case, allowing in particular for the presence of tangency points, i.e., points where two generators of the distribution and their Lie bracket are linearly dependent. The main result of the paper provides a characterization of the Lipschitz equivalence class of an almost-Riemannian distance in terms of a labeled graph associated with it.

}, issn = {1559-002X}, doi = {10.1007/s12220-011-9262-4}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s12220-011-9262-4}, author = {Ugo Boscain and Gr{\'e}goire Charlot and Roberta Ghezzi and Mario Sigalotti} } @article {2010, title = {Two-dimensional almost-Riemannian structures with tangency points}, journal = {Ann. Inst. H. Poincare Anal. Non Lineaire }, volume = {27}, number = {arXiv.org;0908.2564v1}, year = {2010}, pages = {793-807}, publisher = {Elsevier}, abstract = {

Two-dimensional almost-Riemannian structures are generalized Riemannian structures on surfaces for which a local orthonormal frame is given by a Lie bracket generating pair of vector fields that can become collinear. We study the relation between the topological invariants of an almost-Riemannian structure on a compact oriented surface and the rank-two vector bundle over the surface which defines the structure. We analyse the generic case including the presence of tangency points, i.e. points where two generators of the distribution and their Lie bracket are linearly dependent. The main result of the paper provides a classification of oriented almost-Riemannian structures on compact oriented surfaces in terms of the Euler number of the vector bundle corresponding to the structure. Moreover, we present a Gauss-Bonnet formula for almost-Riemannian structures with tangency points.

}, doi = {10.1016/j.anihpc.2009.11.011}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/1963/3870}, author = {Andrei A. Agrachev and Ugo Boscain and Gr{\'e}goire Charlot and Roberta Ghezzi and Mario Sigalotti} } @article {2009, title = {Controllability of the discrete-spectrum Schrodinger equation driven by an external field}, journal = {Ann. Inst. H. Poincare Anal. Non Lineaire 26 (2009) 329-349}, number = {SISSA;01/2008/M}, year = {2009}, abstract = {We prove approximate controllability of the bilinear Schrodinger equation in the case in which the uncontrolled Hamiltonian has discrete nonresonant\\nspectrum. The results that are obtained apply both to bounded or unbounded domains and to the case in which the control potential is bounded or unbounded. The method relies on finite-dimensional techniques applied to the\\nGalerkin approximations and permits, in addition, to get some controllability properties for the density matrix. Two examples are presented: the harmonic oscillator and the 3D well of potential controlled by suitable potentials.}, doi = {10.1016/j.anihpc.2008.05.001}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/1963/2547}, author = {Thomas Chambrion and Paolo Mason and Mario Sigalotti and Ugo Boscain} } @article {2008, title = {A Gauss-Bonnet-like formula on two-dimensional almost-Riemannian manifolds}, journal = {Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. 20 (2008) 801-822}, number = {SISSA;55/2006/M}, year = {2008}, abstract = {We consider a generalization of Riemannian geometry that naturally arises in the framework of control theory. Let $X$ and $Y$ be two smooth vector fields on a two-dimensional manifold $M$. If $X$ and $Y$ are everywhere linearly independent, then they define a classical Riemannian metric on $M$ (the metric for which they are orthonormal) and they give to $M$ the structure of metric space. If $X$ and $Y$ become linearly dependent somewhere on $M$, then the corresponding Riemannian metric has singularities, but under generic conditions the metric structure is still well defined. Metric structures that can be defined locally in this way are called almost-Riemannian structures. They are special cases of rank-varying sub-Riemannian structures, which are naturally defined in terms of submodules of the space of smooth vector fields on $M$. Almost-Riemannian structures show interesting phenomena, in particular for what concerns the relation between curvature, presence of conjugate points, and topology of the manifold. The main result of the paper is a generalization to almost-Riemannian structures of the Gauss-Bonnet formula.}, doi = {10.3934/dcds.2008.20.801}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/1963/1869}, author = {Andrei A. Agrachev and Ugo Boscain and Mario Sigalotti} } @article {2007, title = {High-order angles in almost-Riemannian geometry}, number = {SISSA;59/2007/M}, year = {2007}, abstract = {Let X and Y be two smooth vector fields on a two-dimensional manifold M. If X and Y are everywhere linearly independent, then they define a Riemannian metric on M (the metric for which they are orthonormal) and they give to M the structure of metric space. If X and Y become linearly dependent somewhere on M, then the corresponding Riemannian metric has singularities, but under generic conditions the metric structure is still well defined. Metric structures that can be defined locally in this way are called almost-Riemannian structures. The main result of the paper is a generalization to almost-Riemannian structures of the Gauss-Bonnet formula for domains with piecewise-C2 boundary. The main feature of such formula is the presence of terms that play the role of high-order angles at the intersection points with the set of singularities.}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/1963/1995}, author = {Ugo Boscain and Mario Sigalotti} } @article {2006, title = {Stability of planar nonlinear switched systems}, number = {SISSA;04/2005/M}, year = {2006}, abstract = {We consider the time-dependent nonlinear system ˙ q(t) = u(t)X(q(t)) + (1 - u(t))Y (q(t)), where q ∈ R2, X and Y are two smooth vector fields, globally asymptotically stable at the origin and u : [0,$\infty$) {\textrightarrow} {0, 1} is an arbitrary measurable function. Analysing the topology of the set where X and Y are parallel, we give some sufficient and some necessary conditions for global asymptotic stability, uniform with respect to u(.). Such conditions can be verified without any integration or construction of a Lyapunov function, and they are robust under small perturbations of the vector fields.}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/1963/1710}, author = {Ugo Boscain and Gr{\'e}goire Charlot and Mario Sigalotti} } @article {2005, title = {Regularity properties of optimal trajectories of single-input control systems in dimension three}, journal = {Journal of Mathematical Sciences 126 (2005) 1561-1573}, year = {2005}, publisher = {Springer}, abstract = {Let q=f(q)+ug(q) be a smooth control system on a three-dimensional manifold. Given a point q 0 of the manifold at which the iterated Lie brackets of f and g satisfy some prescribed independence condition, we analyze the structure of a control function u(t) corresponding to a time-optimal trajectory lying in a neighborhood of q 0. The control turns out to be the concatenation of some bang-bang and some singular arcs. More general optimality criteria than time-optimality are considered. The paper is a step toward to the analysis of generic single-input systems affine in the control in dimension 3. The main techniques used are second-order optimality conditions and, in particular, the index of the second variation of the switching times for bang-bang trajectories.}, doi = {10.1007/s10958-005-0044-z}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/1963/4794}, author = {Mario Sigalotti} } @article {2003, title = {On the local structure of optimal trajectories in R3}, journal = {SIAM J. Control Optim. 42 (2003) 513-531}, number = {SISSA;41/2002/M}, year = {2003}, publisher = {SISSA Library}, abstract = {We analyze the structure of a control function u(t) corresponding to an optimal trajectory for the system $\\\\dot q =f(q)+u\\\\, g(q)$ in a three-dimensional manifold, near a point where some nondegeneracy conditions are satisfied. The kind of optimality which is studied includes time-optimality. The control turns out to be the concatenation of some bang and some singular arcs. Studying the index of the second variation of the switching times, the number of such arcs is bounded by four.}, doi = {10.1137/S0363012902409246}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/1963/1612}, author = {Andrei A. Agrachev and Mario Sigalotti} } @mastersthesis {2003, title = {Single-Input Control Affine Systems: Local Regularity of Optimal Trajectories and a Geometric Controllability Problem}, year = {2003}, school = {SISSA}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/1963/5342}, author = {Mario Sigalotti} } @article {2002, title = {The passage from nonconvex discrete systems to variational problems in Sobolev spaces: the one-dimensional case}, journal = {Proc. Steklov Inst. Math. 236 (2002) 395-414}, number = {SISSA;11/2001/M}, year = {2002}, publisher = {MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/1963/3130}, author = {Andrea Braides and Maria Stella Gelli and Mario Sigalotti} }